Letters

Animal testing on trial

As a medical scientist and a carer for someone with dementia, I am well aware of the central role of animal testing in finding cures for this and other diseases (New legal powers to trap animal rights militants, July 28).

But while it is necessary to prevent the intimidatory activities of the animal rights lobby, it is equally important to make sure that the case for testing is properly put. Denial of the value of testing, despite all the evidence, is a major plank in the animal rights platform. Campaigners know that they cannot win the moral argument alone. Their only hope of gaining wide support is by misrepresenting the types of testing performed and by claiming that testing is useless. The reality is that ending testing will bring a halt to most medical advances.

When it is widely understood that there is a high price to be paid for abandoning animal testing, the animal rights movement will lose credibility and support. Dr Stewart Malcolm Bures, Suffolk

Your recent coverage has given little space to the reasoned opinions of those who oppose animal experiments, 99.99% of whom are peaceful. No mention was made of the infringements by researchers of welfare laws and the virtual impossibility of getting a prosecution; nor of the miserable standards of animal accommodation.

Trevor Jones, of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (Letters, July 28), says "an enormous amount of work goes into searching for alternatives". The UK has set up a centre for research into alternatives, but its budget of £660,000 is a pittance .

Professor Jones adds that "the differences [between animals and humans] are small". Tell that to the millions who have lost loved ones to smoking- or cholesterol-related diseases, after being told, on the basis of horrific experiments, that there was no danger. The danger of cholesterol went unnoticed for decades, in part because dogs can cope with considerably more cholesterol in their systems than humans. Dr Iain Gibson Glasgow

Your correspondent Matt Selwood considers animal rights protesters to be exemplified by an 85-year-old woman (Letters, July 28). I hope she is not using any drugs for heart conditions, diabetes or arthritis - how could they live with themselves? Perhaps Cllr Selwood would like to explain what he means by alternatives to animal experimentation: the effects of anti-cancer agents on lichen, perhaps, or the role of anti-retroviral drugs on the Pentium processor? Dr David McAlpine University College London

The extreme animal rightists, with their determined attempts to diminish medical research overlook the fact that this research also benefits animals (eg antibiotics). Were they genuinely concerned with animal welfare, they should at least offer themselves as subjects for such research. Name and address supplied

So City grandees are offering a £25m reward for information leading to convictions of animal rights fanatics - and we thought vivisection was about human health, not City profits. Let the grandees invest the £25m in humane research, thus sparing the thousands who die every year from adverse reactions to drugs tested on millions of animals. Daphne Birkby Alton, Hants

Have the activists not thought that their attempts to end testing in this country, where controls are strict, may force testing abroad. Would the animals they say they are so concerned about really benefit if the work was done in, for example, China or Korea? Perhaps only British animals count. Howard Gill Leeds